David Oranchak gave a talk at the 2015 Cryptologic History Symposium on October 22, 2015,
and posted a ‘youtube’ video named
"The Zodiac Ciphers – What do we know, and when do we stop trying to solve them?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV5R3TBMWJg
In the video, he showed three ciphers created by his encryption algorithm that are
similar to the Z340 (21:03 time into the video) , and the plain text is from literary sources:
1) Gilbert & Sullivan
2) Count of MonteCristo
3) Les Miserables
The video states that all three ciphers have similar characteristics of the Z340.
I have tried using the ZKDecrypto hill-climber program on the MonteCristo cipher,
and it was unsuccessful in decrypting it.
I have written my own hill-climbing program which can solve the Z408 in less than two minutes,
but is unable to solve the MonteCristo cipher.
A few questions I have:
1) are the 3 ciphers shown in David Oranchak’s youtube video legitimate ciphers?
2) why can’t the ZKDecrypto hill-climber software decode them?
3) if ZKDecrypto can’t solve these ciphers, why would it be able to solve the Z340?
I just tried this out, and ZKD got pretty close, in my opinion. I bet Jarlve’s AZDecrypt, which is much better, would get an even better solve. This passage contains quite a few proper names, which are hard for any hill-climber. Here’s the ZKD result I got along with the original text:
ASBEINGOCEOFPONTE SFAITHRULINEATTOC HEDYFRIOCNPSANDWI SHENOTSOOSEEDIHEA LLEGALIORDEASITHI PMURMUREDTHTWOMAN FROMHERSEERORTHES TAIRSMINADOATYOUA RESAYINGCAPEROUSS EMADENOREELYTOOHE REDORASTHOUEHFLID OWITEDFAIMIEDMEVI AENTLYARRITATEDAN DANTOYEPLYTOEANTE RRUITIONBUTADPRES SINGTHEILLESAIRCA ETOMANBEFAITHFULT OACOTHERWHOLEDIFE HECOVETLACEDESARE SFORHIMSELRLTTDAT
as being one of Dantes’ faithful and attached friends." "And was he not so?" asked the abbe. "Gaspard, Gaspard!" murmured the woman, from her seat on the stairs, "mind what you are saying!" Caderousse made no reply to these words, though evidently irritated and annoyed by the interruption, but, addressing the abbe, said, "Can a man be faithful to another whose wife he covets and desires for himself? But Dan…
-glurk
——————————–
I don’t believe in monsters.
These ciphers are not easy because they have allot defects that interrupt the plain text.
The 340 could be something like that if there are even more defects. A good example of that is the W.B Tyler 2 cipher, a sequential homophonic cipher with many defects that remained unsolved for 150 years, which was created in challenge to Edgar Allen Poe’s claim that he could solve any cipher (The American Cryptogram Association similarly challenged Zodiac!). I think it is a particularly good hypothesis because both the 340 and W.B. Tyler 2 cipher show a disturbed cyclic profile (caused by the defects) to such an extent that the sequential homophone grouping cannot be recovered with certainty without knowing the plain text.
Does anyone still have the third cipher? "3) Les Miserables" Thanks.
Those ciphers are all available on doranchak’s page here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ … sp=sharing
The "Les Miserables" one is ‘multiobjective evolution cipher 10.’ Number 35 in the spreadsheet. Posted as numeric:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 14 15 26 27 6 28 29 7 30 5 11 24 8 31 10 32 2 25 13 33 34 35 36 26 15 21 37 22 18 31 38 39 40 22 33 41 32 14 42 15 25 26 43 44 4 2 45 46 14 8 46 47 12 48 24 2 11 31 33 39 49 50 51 52 32 35 2 39 13 34 39 48 25 38 26 14 8 53 54 11 10 15 25 35 39 29 31 10 28 20 20 55 27 2 15 46 14 16 16 34 43 43 56 51 25 18 52 34 33 14 39 7 23 47 27 38 57 17 22 26 53 30 58 36 10 15 44 52 59 13 35 39 45 1 25 24 16 36 6 46 33 43 12 14 5 18 23 42 56 10 60 15 25 8 39 32 30 3 29 2 5 34 6 24 21 59 20 2 28 1 59 47 44 56 36 55 57 48 47 38 4 29 26 3 61 14 45 22 35 10 42 44 49 9 28 39 32 22 14 7 62 21 29 54 53 60 8 1 6 12 20 13 36 47 34 30 39 14 15 48 2 63 14 14 41 14 14 14 15 14 59 14 14 2 57 16 55 11 1 61 29 41 22 11 7 33 14 45 44 19 47 22 52 40 36 21 35 63 28 10 22 38 31 47 26 46 10 14 11 5 4 1 25 14 28 9 57 41 46 14 33 44 6 1 47 24 51 60 23 22 35 10 15 25 29 23 48 49 31 2 29 28 58 6 4 61 62 50 42 21 30 14 15 46
-glurk
——————————–
I don’t believe in monsters.
Do you know what number the Gilbert Sullivan cipher is in the spreadsheet?
It is number 318 I believe.
9%(1UyKbjJ.#5BR+3 +28@TSp1l-^NBtHER +B|JLY8OzFR(4>bl* VLk+FU2)^RJ/c5.DO zB(WH8MNR+|c+.cO6 |5FU+<+RJ|*b.cVOL |5FBc)T(ZU+7XzR+k >+lpyV)D|(#kcNz): 68Vp%CK-*<WqC2#pc -Ff2B9+>;ZlCP^BU- 7tLRd|D5.p9O)*ZM6 Bctz:&yVOp%<K+>^C FqNLPp*-WfzZ2d7;k l<S^+/|dT9f4YK+WG j4EyM+WAlH#+VB+L< z|4&+OkNpB1V2Ff/) z+Mp_*(;KSp2(TGO+ FBcMSEG3dWKc.4_G5 pDCE4GyTY+_BAdP2p |+tFMPHYGK+F6pX^2
or
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 16 18 19 20 21 22 23 04 24 25 26 27 14 28 29 30 15 16 14 31 10 32 33 19 34 35 36 15 03 37 38 08 24 39 40 32 41 16 36 05 18 42 26 15 10 43 44 13 11 45 34 35 14 03 46 29 19 47 27 15 16 31 44 16 11 44 34 48 31 13 36 05 16 49 16 15 10 31 39 08 11 44 40 34 32 31 13 36 14 44 42 21 03 50 05 16 51 52 35 15 16 41 38 16 24 23 06 40 42 45 31 03 12 41 44 27 35 42 53 48 19 40 23 02 54 07 25 39 49 46 55 54 18 12 23 44 25 36 56 18 14 01 16 38 57 50 24 54 58 26 14 05 25 51 28 32 15 59 31 45 13 11 23 01 34 42 39 50 47 48 14 44 28 35 53 60 06 40 34 23 02 49 07 16 38 26 54 36 55 27 32 58 23 39 25 46 56 35 50 18 59 51 57 41 24 49 22 26 16 43 31 59 21 01 56 37 33 07 16 46 61 09 37 30 06 47 16 46 62 24 29 12 16 40 14 16 32 49 35 31 37 60 16 34 41 27 23 14 04 40 18 36 56 43 42 35 16 47 23 63 39 03 57 07 22 23 18 03 21 61 34 16 36 14 44 47 22 30 61 17 59 46 07 44 11 37 63 61 13 23 45 54 30 37 61 06 21 33 16 63 14 62 59 58 18 23 31 16 28 36 47 58 29 33 61 07 16 36 48 23 52 26 18
I think it is still a "real" cipher but it has many intentionally introduced errors.
For example, 17 of the 63 symbols have more than one plaintext letter assignment.
I did that under the premise that we saw similar polyalphabetism in Z408 due
to errors in construction or transcription, or intentional deception.
There are also many misspelled words and a 10-character section of filler.
The plaintext itself is a little unusual because of some repetitive phrases.
